Sunday, August 24, 2014

UC is No Longer Californians' University

The
University of California, Berkeley posted, boastingly on its facebook feed last
week that yet another survey of higher education in the United States had
ranked the institution the top public university in the country.Faculty and students have much to be proud of
at UC Berkeley as well as other campuses of the University of California, which
all ranked high on the survey.

But
the gloating about being the “top public university” is going to have to stop
one of these days, because increasingly, Berkeley and the other UC campuses are
public in name only (PINO?).

At
other public institutions—take schools, for example—students attend free of
charge because the public as a whole has seen fit to invest in the collective
education of our state’s future and youth.Not so at the University of California, where students pay around
$15,000 per year, and look at a total cost per year at Berkeley estimated at
somewhere over $30,000.

Berkeley’s
previous Chancellor actively sought to free the university from what he saw as
the shackles of its public responsibility, advocating that each UC campus be
allowed to set fees independently, and for an end to the systemic character of
UC.

The
current Chancellor has wisely backed away from such rhetoric, but remains
convinced of the inevitability of privatization, having entertained no strategy
that rolls back or significantly checks events of the past decades.Indeed, Nicholas Dirks has embraced UC’s
connections to the wider world, and is joining other campuses in flinging open
the door to out of state students who now make up around 20% of UC students
(I’ve heard anecdotally that Berkeley would like to eventually have upwards of
40% out-of-state students).

The
advantages to the administration are multiple: the global brand of the
University is enhanced; they rake in more cash (out of state students pay over
twice what UC students do); and they pioneer a new model for a large “global”
university (which of course means a university comprised of global elites).

The
downside from Californians’ perspective is that the University is ceasing to
serve its primary constituency—California’s students—as it should.The
Sacramento Bee reported that last
year Berkeley admitted 18% fewer Californians than in 2007.In our federal system, it is the
responsibility of the states to provide higher education for our state’s
youth.Our country and our state are
struggling to re-tool our society for a new global economy, and instead of
bringing students from California’s struggling communities to these
campuses—which were institutions fabled for their public service when I was
much younger—they are bypassing our community in their rush for profits.

Of
course, Californians bear a large measure of responsibility for this behavior
on the part of the University of California.Decades of disinvestment from UC—at the same time that higher education
has become more complex and diversified than ever, alongside a more
demographically complex state—has ensured that administrators in particular
give short shrift to their public responsibilities.

Possessed
of public-spirited leadership, the University might have reacted differently to
disinvestment, and exhibited different priorities.But the Regents of the University of
California are not such a body.Representing Corporate California, the Regents have seen public
disinvestment as an opportunity to embrace rather than a problem to address,
and led by Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, and others, have pushed
actively for slow, steady privatization which places the burden of funding
squarely on students and their families.

A
few Senators voiced some criticism, but the terms along which they did so
exhibited how feeble a grasp they actually have on the issues facing our
state’s higher education sphere.Jim
Nielsen, a
rather stupid Northern Californian Senator, grumbled that “there is an
arrogance in those institutions of higher learning that they can do just
whatever they want and they will get funding”, referring to the scrounging of
the administrations for out of state students.“That arrogance”, Nielsen whined, “needs to be tempered a little bit”.

Nielsen
is a Republican Senator who, with his party has steadily stripped UC of funding
over the years, thanks to his idiotic propensity for signing pledges to Grover
Norquist which commit him to turning down tax increases come hell or high
water.

UC’s
Regents are certainly more than a little arrogant.But their arrogance stems from their strong
position in relation to the hypocritical whiners like Nielsen.Because Nielsen and his party have de-funded
UC over the years, very little of the system’s funding any longer comes from
the state.

So
because Nielsen and his fellow Republicans signed over the use of their brains
to Grover Norquist and his anti-public crusade, when UC does something wrong
like shaft California’s students, legislators can’t do anything about it
because they no longer hold any power over UC.They’ve given up the one thing that once gave them power over the
largely independent Regents: the money they traditionally provided for the
education of California’s youth.

So
today, when Nielsen and his ilk squawk about the “arrogance” of the Regents—which
in their case comes from their small-minded attacks on critical institutions of
learning—the Richard Blums of this world, who wield far more power and
influence in our world than any democratically-elected legislator, can ignore
them and proceed apace with privatization, safe in the knowledge that before
long they won’t have to listen to Nielsen at all.

Because
the truth is, UC is no longer the university of California and of
Californians.It is fast coming to
resemble a private institution, open only to those who can afford to attend and
who are not deterred by a terribly expensive sticker price, shorn of any
commitment to its state, and looking to make the most of a global market
instead of the best of its community.

It
would be tragic if Californians gave up what was once their finest public
institution.But unless they experience
a change of heart about their commitment to our public sphere and the
livelihoods and welfare of future generations, that’s precisely what will
occur.

About Me

I am from Northern California, and am the fifth generation of my family to have lived in the Golden State. Now I live next-door in the Silver State, where I research and write about colonialism and decolonization in Africa, teach European, African, environmental, and colonial history, and write this blog, mostly about politics, sometimes about history, and occasionally about travels or research.